2017 New Zealand Spelling Bee champion crowned!

2017 New Zealand Spelling Bee champion
crowned!28 October
2017: Christchurch Year 10 student Lucy Jessep has
today triumphed over hundreds of students from more than 100
schools to win the title of New Zealand Spelling Bee
champion 2017.

Twenty-one of New Zealand’s top spellers
battled it out for the coveted title of 2017 New Zealand
Spelling Bee champion at the event’s riveting
tension-filled national final at Te Papa in
Wellington.

Lucy, of St Margaret’s College, takes away
the spelling bee trophy and $5000 towards her academic
pursuits, in addition to the coveted title of New Zealand
Spelling Bee champion.

Lucy, who is a keen debater and
loves learning languages, correctly spelled the word
‘pusillanimous’ to take out the title.

Lucy says she
was just focused on “not getting out in the first
round”, and because of that she didn’t consider winning.
After the final she said she was amazed she won and it was
“still sinking in”.

Runner-up was Year 9 student
George Turner of Marlborough Boys’ College. In a tightly
fought competition, Lucy and George battled it out for first
place over four rounds.

New Zealand Spelling Bee founder
Janet Lucas says it was a nail-biting final which was
fitting for a competition in which the talent was stronger
than ever.

“Lucy did incredibly well to triumph in such
a strong field. This was the toughest and longest
competition we have ever had. We have seen some truly
amazing spelling today,” says Janet.

“The New Zealand
Spelling Bee is fiercely competitive in a fun way. It’s a
sport with an intellectual focus – students train and
prepare to compete, and it’s clear from the excellent
results that they trained hard.”

The finalists won their
places out of a field of hundreds of Year 9 and 10 students,
from more than 100 secondary schools and colleges around New
Zealand.

The rigorous competition began with a written
classroom test, followed by six regional semi-finals held
around New Zealand in which the top 200 spellers competed
for one of 21 places in the final.

Now in its 13th year,
the New Zealand Spelling Bee, supported by the Wright Family
Foundation, is a competitive spelling event aimed at
encouraging Year 0 to 10 students to gain a love of the
English language. The programme improves spelling
capabilities, comprehension and communication skills.

The
New Zealand Spelling Bee has become a much-loved annual
event and has seen tens of thousands of students participate
since it started in 2005.

Its inspiration was
Spellbound, a documentary film about the US-based
Scripps National Spelling Bee. Last year the New Zealand
Spelling Bee final was televised in a TVNZ show, also called
Spellbound.

In addition to the National Spelling
Bee for Year 9-10 students, the New Zealand Spelling Bee
encompasses a second programme: the New Zealand Classroom
Spelling Bee, for Years 0 to 8. Resources are provided free
of charge for both programmes, allowing students to study
word lists and learn new words, competing in classroom
tests.

The New Zealand Spelling Bee has grown
significantly since 2014, when the Wright Family Foundation
came on board as the programme’s sole sponsor. The
foundation’s support secured the event’s future,
resourcing it so that the programme could be expanded into
primary and intermediate schools. About 800 primary schools
and intermediate schools now sign up for the classroom
programme every year.

In response to the challenges facing Scoop and the media industry we’ve instituted an Ethical Paywall to keep the news freely available to the public.
People who use Scoop for work need to be licensed through a ScoopPro subscription under this model, they also get access to exclusive news tools.

Given the historical and socio-cultural context from which Prynne's poetry emerged, a panoptical perspective on what his poems might be trying to say is indispensable to its comprehension. With some sequences this can be an exceptionally demanding challenge, requiring a great deal of perseverance, concentration, and endurance. More>>

The Cage by Lloyd Jones, This Mortal Boy by Fiona Kidman, All This By Chance by Vincent O’Sullivan, and The New Ships by Kate Duignan are shortlisted for the $53,000 Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize. More>>